In case you missed it, Kelly Reid had a great article over on ManaNation last week discussing the meteoric price rises of legacy staples like Tarmogoyf, I highly recommend checking it out. He termed these new $100+ cards “New Power”, comparing them to the original Power 9 in both in-game utility and secondary market price and availability. Today I’d like to talk about something different. Jace, the Mind Sculptor, who – with my tongue planted firmly in my cheek – I am nicknaming new new power.
Just for reference again, here is the card:
New Jace reached sixty dollars on starcitygames before Worldwake was even released. It is currently sold out at that store, but has still managed to make it to #20 in their Worldwake rare/mythic sales charts for the last month. I acknowledge that he is available cheaper through other channels, however the fact remains that some people are buying them from SCG at $60 a pop. This situation is simply astonishing and it deserves a closer look.
First things first – I am not denying Jace is a strong card. If a blue deck emerges it will certainly have to consider playing him as he can provide powerful card selection and card draw, two things blue control decks love to do. He is certainly one of the strongest, and rarest cards in the set. However there are several arguments against his ludicrous price point.
1: He doesn’t have a track record.
Good deckbuilders are throwing out deck ideas for Jace left and right, that is not under question. However none of these theoretical decks have recorded any wins, made any top 8s, or made up any portion of any metagame that could justify the current price. There is every chance that the Jace decks just won’t be good enough for the new, unknown metagame – a metagame that will develop out of one where blue is by far the worst colour. Baneslayer Angel, an obviously insanely playable mythic with huge casual draw, presold at 15 and it took back to back pro tour wins across two different formats for it to reach $60. Jace is the equal most expensive card in standard before he has ever been played in a competitive constructed event.
2: Blightning.
The entire Jund archetype will be a problem for these theoretical Jace decks, but Blightning is an especially neat answer to Jace. The super Mind Rot is just as effective at wiping out the new Jace as it was at wiping out the old one, and blue decks will still have just as much trouble answering a Blightning flipped off a Bloodbraid Elf as they did previously. Great Sable Stag is still in standard as well – though it seems he has been largely forgotten – and it will eat Jace alive no matter what Calcite Snappers, Walls of Denial or Cancels the blue player can muster to throw in its way. I can’t imagine a blue deck with the cards we have becoming such a preponderant metagame presence that its flagship mythic would justify a sixty dollar price tag.
3: The set has only just been released.
One of the contributing factors in Baneslayer’s high price was the extreme scarcity around release time, due to shortages caused by the short first print run. We have no idea how worldwake is going to sell yet, and it is entirely possible that Jaces will flood the market. Due to it being a small set there will also be plenty more Jaces per case of Worldwake than there were Baneslayers per case of M10. Currently there are no problems on the supply side of things, so the high price is due entirely to demand.
And that demand is pushed overboard by hype. To paraphrase Ben Bleiweiss’ latest article, he claims that Jace will be played as a four of, in multiple tournament quality decks across multiple formats, including the most played deck in standard. This is a wild claim with no basis in fact and while I’m as excited as anyone about the possibility of blue being good again there is nothing concrete that tells me Jace is worth $60. I’ll be leaving him well alone for a couple of months while the price comes back down to earth, and I suggest you do the same as well.
